


What Dreams May Come

by Fangirlinit



Category: Defiance (TV), Warehouse 13
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1449931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fangirlinit/pseuds/Fangirlinit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing is as it seems when a chance encounter brings Stahma Tarr and Helena Wells face to face. It may not be the start of a beautiful friendship, but it could bring about closure both have sought after witnessing destruction and the lifelong sting of loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [@BeringWells](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=%40BeringWells), [@natashalovestv](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=%40natashalovestv), [@gaymerlady](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=%40gaymerlady).



> Story takes place post-Season 1 finale with the exception of Nolan and Irisa’s storyline. For the sake of my AU just forget about Nolan’s resurrection and Irisa’s belly flop into that artifact portal thingy. Title originated from the famous soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

“I went to a box room at the top of the house and locked myself in, in order to be alone with my aching miseries.”

\- - H.G. Wells, _The War of the Worlds_

* * *

High above the Earth in the outer space there was a wasteland. The wreckage floated as all things do in space: weightless and indefinite. It would continue to make revolutions, orbited by shrapnel and debris until pulled in by the Earth’s gravitational force.

Soon one such fragment spun off from its Ark Belt counterparts. Its shape was a cylinder with a flat bottom for easy storage alongside its clones. It was a container sealed, though bent at its corners and edges crumpled over like wilted paper. After years of bumping against debris like a slow motion pin ball the small chamber remained unspoiled from the inside. Untouched by space and time.

The well-intact debris hurtled end over end towards the Earth. The planet’s atmosphere scorched the surface without mercy, leaving an incinerating trail of gray. The copper coating burned to such an intensity that it glowed a beautiful sunset orange. It’s heavy plated material melted, compressed, and caved to the pressure. Three thousand degree heat attacked the integrity of its hull. Its identification markings grew distorted. Any remaining clues to its origins lay sheathed within as its last coating of letters wore away…

_W re ouse 32_

* * *

“You’re telling me this hunk of junk has been floatin’ around space for who knows how many years and had a human inside it? And they’re still alive?!”

“Am I speaking Indo? Of course they’re still alive! I just came from watching her heave into a bucket.”

“It’s a woman?”

“The most woman I’ve laid eyes on, human or Votan. Hey!”

Irisa’s knife hand stayed. She tipped her head looking from the two inch blade on his throat to his wide eyes.

“It’s a joke,” he said.

“You know I don’t like… jokes.”

He swallowed as the weapon withdrew. At a safe distance he regained enough courage to roll his eyes. “No, you just don’t get them the first time.”

She elbowed him good in the ribs.

“This sounds like the Gordon McClintock episode all over again. You know what that means.”

“Strict interrogation and observation.”

Nolan glanced at the bronze skinned Irathient. God help him, he loved the girl. She was just as much a superior deputy as she was a superior daughter.

“This time no mistakes,” he said. “We might be able to trust Doc’s scans this time, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have an imposter on our hands. Humans are just as capable of infiltration as Indo-sapiens. And secrecy is everything. If this gets out, word will spread on the streets like razor rain. And with Datak in his brand spankin’ new elected seat I can tell you there’s only one way this will go down.”

“His way,” Tommy said. He shouldered his shotgun for good measure.

Nolan nodded. “Datak’s way.”

* * *

“If Nolan thinks he can hide a thimble from me he should find another career.”

“The scruffy lawkeeper works for the town. And you are the town.”

“I have eyes everywhere, even before I became mayor. His efforts to evade me are an insult.”

“My dear,” Stahma Tarr slid her hands over the shoulders of her husband and down his lapels, “you have only to lift a finger and gain what you require. The secret Nolan harbors is as much yours as it is Defiance’s. I’m sure someone will see reason to hand it over after a swift use of your elected power.”

“No,” Datak’s voice was a hammer, low and exacting enough to make his wife cower. She indeed shrank back, but recovered with an unhurried rounding to the front of the mayoral desk. “Why would I be so forthcoming when my past methods worked so well? I have a loyal wife that stands by her husband and who will do his bidding whenever asked. Don’t I?”

Stahma bowed her head, uttering a sweet murmur. “Always.”

“You will go to Nolan and convince him that this…” his mouth formed a grimace around the horrid tasting word, “… _human_ is of importance to me. Don’t worry if he refuses. He will, of course. He would rather you speak to the woman than bring her to my domain.”

“I am to extract information from this human.”

“Everything.” Datak placed his hands on the polished mahogany surface and pushed himself to his feet. “I need to know everything. A lost civilian crosses the stasis net, I know about it. A child sneaks a hand in the cookie jar… an Irathient spits its filth on a piece of fruit… the NeedWant hires a new proprietress…“ A long stride had him before his wife. He looked down upon her as her orange eyes remained downcast. “Some scavengers haul in a cryosleep pod with an undamaged human… I. Want. To. Know.”

“I assure you, if the human has speaking abilities I will report everything she remembers.”

Datak shared her smile and taking Stahma by the shoulders brought her lips to his in a kiss.

“A Casti couldn’t ask for a more dutiful wife.”

Stahma nodded. When he released her she floated back and turned for the doorway. As she exited the mayor’s office the sweet, tranquil face liquefied from what lay beneath. A vague and troubled darkness.

* * *

A rust reinforced Dodge Charger came to a rolling stop before the Defiance med center. Its three passengers exited with as little excitement possessed upon entering just moments ago. The approaching matter was sensitive indeed and took sensitive hands. None of the three law keeping personnel were adept in the matters of sensitivity. In fact the closest they ever came to sensitivity training was allowing Casti tradition to continue within Defiance. Not even a scolding from former Mayor Rosewater could stop their disregard for alien customs. Each of them had their own way of dealing with a problem: Nolan and the point of his pistol, Irisa and her knives, and Tommy with his handcuffs.

This time had to be different. This time they had to make an effort to keep the peace without drawing a gun, a knife, or restraints. The town was in a transitional period and on shakier ground than ever before. With Kenya’s killer still on the loose, Amanda missing, and Datak in power Defiance was a Terra-sphere waiting to detonate.

“That’s her?”

Tommy nodded, but his mystification wasn’t shared by the lawkeeper. “Don’t you think she has the look of –“

“I wouldn’t be quick to brag. We don’t know who or what we’re dealing with here. And until this woman is identified she doesn’t look like anyone. Got it?”

“Sure thing.”

Nolan strode further into the med center. It was currently unoccupied save for the Indogene medical examiner and the human. Doctor Meh Yewll hovered over her patient, closing a thigh wound with a scalpel-like cautery tool. A wisp of smoke rose from the glowing blue blade as the instrument hummed. It was not the nasty kind of business Nolan had seen in his years during the Pale Wars. As a soldier he had dealt more wounds than having witnessed them. Yet a wide gash like the one decorating the stranger’s thigh would not be any less painful than a prick from the tooth of a monarch.

The lawkeeper came to a noiseless halt at the foot of the bed. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and that included those Liberata-human hybrid girls he came across a while back (what a night _that_ cost him). The woman lay on the cot with her back supported by a few pillows. She was conscious enough to exude a relaxed posture and lucid to a point that her brown eyes shown through. Her face was a porcelain canvas for pretty features. A dainty mouth, high cheekbones, all framed by the finest silk hair Nolan hadn’t seen since before the Votan’s arrived, before his mother died in a mortar attack. The sight of it, that shocking river of black, had so taken hold of him that his hand twitched to reach out. Instinct proclaimed a test of authenticity, an examination of its weight and lushness. Its color and smoothness. He had to know. He couldn’t explain why it meant so much to him or why his eyes stung, but he clenched his hand to his side as if crushing instinct to dust.

The woman’s chest rose and fell as she watched the doctor seal her wound. Her stare was hard fixed, leaving Nolan to think she was not in any pain. In fact she seemed to thrive on it, taking an anxious breath and zeroing in on every drone, scrap, and scent of burning flesh the cautery tool gave off. It was a near primal need for stimulation. Spending years locked up in the same metal pod, of course, could do that to anyone.

“Who have we got here, Doc?”

Doc Yewll answered while dressing the wound. “Human of apparent Earth-like origin. Your usual simple structured being.”

The remark jumpstarted the dark-haired human as a spark would a downed roller engine. “Excuse me?” she said, her features magnifying to an indignant level.

“And she has a mouth,” the doctor said. Her head rose to cast the same insufferable expression displayed since the woman became her patient not two hours ago.

Nolan’s hands rested at his hips. “Reminds me of someone I know.”

Yewll turned from her finished work and finally met Nolan with a glare of steel. “Watch it.”

“I am no simpleton!” The woman crossed her arms. “Do you even know who you’re talking to?”

“No,” the lawkeeper mirrored the pose with the added differential of a smile, “but I sure would like to be enlightened.”

The stranger pressed her lips together and looked away. Whatever exasperations she suffered before were cast away by a proposed introduction.

“Well, so much for a smooth meet and greet.”

“This is a waste of time.” Irisa shouldered past Tommy and stalked forward. She stopped at the bedside with an imposing air and stood over the woman who was now staring up at her. “Who are you?”

The stranger gave the Irathient a steady once over before narrowing her eyes into the enlarged alien ones. Still examining the young girl, she angled her head to the side as if coming to a conclusion. “I am Helena.” It came out with such curtness that it could have passed for obligation.

“Why have you come to Defiance?”

“It was never my intention to come anywhere. My capsule’s descent to Earth and its inevitable discovery were sheer happenstance. If I had it my way,” the stranger who called herself Helena shot a threatening glare at her doctor, “I would never have woken up from the bronzer.”

“Right,” Nolan said. “And we should believe you why? How do we know you don’t work for Earth Republic? Or the Votanis Collective for that matter?”

“I would calculate you and your friends are in the same boat as my high-spirited doctor here in being unfamiliar with bronzing technology.” Her hand brushed invisible lint from her blanketed lap in a show of condescension. “Too archaic for your generation? Or were you too preoccupied in killing each other off to observe the importance of preserving history?”

“Cryogenics has been the principal method of preserving life for decades.” Nolan’s tone was as gruff as his five o’clock shadow. While it was true the Earth had little to show after years of interspecies war, he had seen enough of it as a soldier to know the bravery and sacrifice that rose above bloodshed. “In fact we had a similar incident not long ago when a young man woke up from hypersleep only to choke our mayor half to death. So you can understand our concern.”

“I’m wagering that he was not bronzed?”

“No, but I wouldn’t put it past the E-Rep to try alternative tactics.”

“Hang on,” Tommy cut in with a raised hand, “how do you know about the Pale Wars? You couldn’t be aware of what was going on when you were in cryosleep.”

Helena’s hands fisted the blanket. She was beginning to shake. “I am no spy.”

“Like Nolan said, it wouldn’t be the first time someone like you claimed the exact same thing. The E-Rep are out for themselves. Defiance is an independent city-state that has its own system of government. And it works…” Tommy frowned and shrugged, “most of the time. If the Tarrs aren’t sabotaging the ballot box. We keep to ourselves here. We ask for no trouble and give none. Except for trading we keep a strict ‘leave us alone’ policy.”

“How ironic. I keep the same policy.”

Nolan shook his head with finality. “Not here you don’t.”

“Spy or no spy she is still my patient.” Doc Yewll’s medical chart closed with a snap. She rose to take a protective, yet professional stance in front of the occupied bed. “She needs fluids and rest. Question time is over.”

“How long until question time resumes?” Nolan jerked a thumb towards the door. “As you can see the streets haven’t been too safe these days. I don’t want to come back here and find my suspect liberated or worse… at the wrong end of a charge blade.”

“According to diagnostics this woman hasn’t a single recombinant or synthetic antigen seen in modern day vaccines. She hasn’t used her muscles in over 30 years. She’s ready when I say she’s ready.”

“Whatever you say, Doc. In the mean time I’ll post Irisa here to watch over her.”

The deputy bared her teeth. “Absolutely not.”

Nolan shrugged. “She seems to like you.” His enjoyment of the situation displayed a twitching mouth.

“How do you figure?”

“She answered your questions.”

“This is wholly unnecessary!” Helena was rising from the bed and having a difficult time untangling her legs from the blanket. There was as much gelatin there as found in your average Jello from the modern age. Yewll pushed her back without a glance. Helena gave in with a disgruntled frown.

His work there done for the time being, Nolan swaggered towards the exit. When his hand grasped the door handle he stopped and turned. “Welcome to Defiance.”

* * *

Stahma peeled back her snow white hood just enough to catch the Lawkeeper and his underling exit the medical center. Minutes after the Charger kicked up gravel she kept hidden so there was every guarantee her meeting went undisturbed.

“No more visitors today.” Doc Yewll continued to scribble dosage notes on her new patient’s chart. “And that includes the mayor’s wife.”

Her presence was already noticed as her silent gait was customary among female Castithans. Her affiliation with the most powerful man in Defiance was a dead giveaway. Datak had more of a handle on the goings on around town and who better to overhear them than his wife?

Easing the door to a close, Stahma slid her way up to the testy Indogene.

“It would just be for a few moments,” she said and without a trace of impatience. “If I could only introduce myself to the new citizen and make her feel welcome I’m sure it would ease your mind as it does my husband’s.”

Yewll’s hand went to her slim, smock covered hip. “I myself like to keep politics out of the hospital,” she said rather blasé. “It messes with a little thing called ethics and doctor/patient confidentiality.”

“I understand completely. All species adhere to their own code of principles, especially one race of so dedicated a vocation as yours. As her physician you have every right to hold your patient’s well-being above the frivolous affairs of legislation.”

“A simple ‘I have no agenda’ would do.” The doctor’s pitch gave off a low melody of bother.

Stahma received strict instructions not to alarm the patient with too much talk. The awakened human copped to knowing more about cryogenics and Earth's history than her visitors combined; the warning didn't matter much.

The next obstacle would border on a challenge, but not one Stahma couldn’t surpass with a bat of the eyes and a murmur of ‘truthful’ statements. It would be like persuading the offspring of a blunt instrument (‘like’ in this case meant extreme equal to).

The soles of her boots planted in the floor like roots. “You don’t belong here,” Irisa said.

“I’m sure we can come to an understanding.”

“I’m not Doc Yewll.”

“But you must know what is good for the human woman. If what I hear is true then these matters should settle quietly and with a gentleness your kind has not yet mastered.” Stahma’s face remained cordial despite the Irathient’s rigid posture. “These rough surroundings disorient her. A friend is what she needs.”

“You think one look at your Casti face will ease her confusion? You’re not as clever as I thought.”

Stahma breathed in and then out through a kind smile. The whites of her eyelashes fluttered. “You have every reason to distrust me. I’m sure you would be anything but hard-pressed in escorting me out, and in normal circumstances I would comply. Yet,” Stahma drew a step nearer, turning her mouth down so it could better deliver its purpose. “I am not here on behalf of my husband.”

Irisa’s stillness endured. She waited and she listened.

“Sources say that this stranger possesses a likeness to me.” A partition blocked the subject from view, so Stahma took in the med center’s surroundings like a dream. “I would be remiss to say this does not interest me. It is an exhilarating mystery.” The trance-like gaze fell on Irisa, making the Irathient feel quite the focus of so engrossed a woman. How Stahma Tarr made someone feel like the only significant wildflower in the midst of an endless sea of them bewildered Irisa. “As I said, my being here has nothing to do with Datak. I merely wish to sate an innocent curiosity. There are many things in this solar system that we cannot place a name or value to and even more that are unimaginable. Faith is as shrouded as my distant and expired homeland.” Stahma bowed her head. “I’m sure you can understand,” she said with soft, translucent eyes.

Irisa lips didn’t move from their stapled place. A moment later she responded with a bluntness that rivaled Doc Yewll, “You have fifteen minutes. Just talking. I’ll be sitting right over there.”

The young Irathient took five long strides to the other side of the med center and plopped herself in a chair. It was a fair distance away to give them privacy, but close enough to exert a watchful eye. The Irathient propped her crossed legs on a chair and folded her arms. She stared at Stahma’s movements like she could hear the ends of her immaculate robe brush the floor.

Stahma resigned to a chair beside the bed. She held her chin level with the floor, hands in her lap, back straight and almost touching the chair’s steel rail back. Movements were minimal as if she was posing for a portrait and the painter was staring her down for the initial brush strokes. She was holding still as all female Castithans did. They stood and sat as if on permanent display. Stahma would not move or speak until inspired to.

In the midst of posturing it occurred to Stahma that someone had finally spoken.

“This is not what I imagined for mankind.”

The human’s timbre was strange. Of another world, Stahma would grant, however foolish that might seem to the Earth species.

Stahma blinked after the break in silence and discovered her own voice, airy and generous. “And what did you imagine?”

Helena caught herself before replying. She narrowed her eyes with peculiarity. “Have you read many books?”

“I am familiar with the literature of my people, but I confess to no inkling over the written English word.”

“Well,” Helena sighed, angling her eyes away, “that upsets any chance of me boasting about my abilities.” She looked back and noticed Stahma’s brow out of place. “What I imaged and what I hoped for are two separate entities. I thought there would be war and desolation. Entropy leading to dystopia, which is, by definition, inevitable. Degeneration breeds chaos in all its forms.

“What I hoped for could only be described as an eventual peace. An idealistic ceasefire between all races and religions. Absolute truth, reason, and justice. From the course of history I have bared witness to the world seems to have struck a balance between the two. There is co-habitation. It is not perfect, but it exists in this town.”

The last thing Stahma expected to act upon was her own curiosity. With no hint of an introduction Stahma found herself replying back to a stranger in the mirror.

“You speak as if you are an all-seeing presence.” The need to express a notion of ‘goddess’ withheld for it was sacrilege to even speak of a higher power other than Rayetso. Stahma’s hands clenched tighter in her lap. “Where is your home?” she rephrased.

“My home is in the heavens. I was a fixture there for many years.”

“And before?”

A hand concealed itself within dark tresses. Helena bolted her eyes shut and shook her head. “I was encased 33 years ago on Earth, never to speak to a soul. I could not look upon another human being nor make any physical contribution. It was a rarity that I was ever looked upon. Once in a great while a new recruit would gape at my bronzed companions. Then their eyes would fall on my state.”

Helena look faded past Stahma into oblivion. Her voice became as slow and artificial as a program.

“Sadness is something I did not wish to see for I was already filled to the brim with the stuff. Never in the decades I spent put away from all mobile society had it diminished.” Her gaze returned alert. “Since the Votan’s arrival my employer moved from place to place, myself along with them. It was becoming difficult to hide our purpose in the world. It was a frightful time which made our priority of secrecy all the more worth protecting. It wasn’t until the Earth Military Coalition built secret government establishments in orbit did our warehouse find a safe haven. The battle was on the surface, of course, diverting all attention from interstellar travel. There was much going on up there than people understood. Infiltration of the Arks was a top priority. If the humans got their hands on Votan technology the fortunes of war would be theirs.

“Many of my people, from my warehouse, were called upon to act as spies. Many failed. None of it mattered, though. By 2030 some lucky fool from the EMC managed to cause a mass explosion that ripped apart the alien fleet along with my home. The thirty-second incarnation. The remains of that blast formed what is known today as the Ark Belt, and I with my capsule were left to knock amongst the debris for the next few years.”

“Scavengers discovered your transport just outside Bissel Pass.”

“Not far off from this little slice of utopia,” Helena said with a nod. “That is how I know of Defiance’s activities. Its accomplishments, its obstacles… the floods and epidemics…”

Stahma’s back had settled into the chair as she took in the story. It sounded like a story, a fairy tale, a legend bordering on the implausible. It was nonsense. No human in stasis could possible know that much about Earth’s history. Stahma had once read poetry with more riveting characters and interwoven plot.

Yet the spun tale shown on her face and in her eyes like no literature Stahma had experienced. From her restless hand tangling in hair black as a raven’s wing to the eye roll covering a tear. The display was so entrancing, so believable. It threatened everything Stahma forced to believe. It was such a human spectacle. But why, Stahma asked herself, why should she feel such things if the story was false?

There was no other reason for it besides a trick. The story was as much a lie as the tremors. It was a fool’s errand. Infiltration of her husband’s office would not be dealt with kind words or a painless finale.

“We own a likeness of each other,” Stahma said. “It is thrilling as I’m sure you will admit to the same. I have made a long journey as well. I am happy to share a familiarity of this nature.”

“You are most certainly not.”

Stahma stiffened, falsifying the smile further. “I beg your pardon?”

“Smiles and admissions of happiness are for those that actually possess it. I am about as much a fool as I am a spy for the Earth Republic. You are lying to me, darling. And you are lying to yourself.”

“I do not understand.”

“We are not the same.” Helena put it out there with all the egotism that had kept her alive and kicking since 1866. “We may both feel alienated by this environment, but we do not hail from the same world. And our physical likeness is a product of coincidence and evolution. I myself have dabbled in the study of doppelgänger theory, coming up with no conclusion but sheer irrelevance. There is no grand meaning. No divine intervention.” Her hand gave a wave at the wrist like she was swatting a fly. “Nature always did have a sense of humor.”

“This is humorous to you?”

“If it wasn’t, would I be talking to you?”

“I do not like being made a fool.”

“Well, neither do I.”

Stahma drew back. She locked her lips shut, going no further. This woman was smart – no, brilliant. Stahma had not met a more brilliant human being and, she was sure, a more brilliant living sentient.

“You know this better than I do.”

“The game?” Helena asked. “Of course, darling. If the years I’ve been around have taught me anything…”

“I suppose it is… funny.”

“A cosmic joke, more like. But I’m the only one laughing.”

Stahma stared and tipped her head. “And yet you are not laughing.”

“Now I am truly dating myself.” Helena’s mutter hit her shoulder before she twisted back like the movement struck a pang. “It is an expression. But ‘funny’ is far from an enjoyable feeling, especially since I am suffering muscle atrophy.”

The smiles, the laughing, the pleasant tones. Perhaps they did share a commonality. Maybe Stahma was wrong about the motivation and the context. Maybe the trick was for the benefit of the trickster. To ease the past, the pain, the guilty conscious. Self-sabotage at its finest. The Castithan woman knew it well.

“I do not trust you,” Stahma said.

“I hardly trust you, either.”

On the final nod, the Casti looked over to the sound of a knife being scraped against a whetstone. She drifted back to the stranger.

“My name is Stahma.”

“You can call me Helena.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Why should I believe you are on my side now?”

“Because you would not have given me the assignment otherwise.”

“It should comfort me to know you carried out my order with or without the wealth of shtako I hold over you.”

“And you have every right to,” Stahma said with a bow. “I have not been faithful to you in the past. It was a grave mistake. But things have changed. They are still changing. With Amanda Rosewater on the streets and Nolan in the dark you have the upper hand now. There is no need to make threats on those who serve you well. There is no need to harm a guiltless human who is only passing through.”

The creases framing Datak’s eyes deepened. “You adopt your place too high, wife. I can threaten whomever I choose and on whatever grounds.” His teeth ground together and he leaned further over to deliver the news into a dainty ear. “Even you, Stahma. So don’t presume to tell me what is needed to be done.”

The corner of Stahma’s mouth curved up. She closed her eyes in submission.

To disagree would mean a painful finale of her own. She did not wish for a charge blade across the neck any less then for the woman who shared her face. Which was why her smile twitched. To assert herself before her husband was traitorous to their caste. It took a certain kind of Casti to raise their chin when it was easiest (and unproblematic) to surrender it to one’s chest. It was a long way to fall, but for one so familiar with betrayal there was no sacrifice unworthy to permit her scale upwards. The lamb could take the shape of a confidant, a lover. It could even take the form of a red-blooded twin. Which was why her hands clenched behind her back.

Datak drew away. He rounded his desk to pick up a stack of documents, moving them from one pile to another. This was done several times to several stacks. And it was done with a sneer at every thump of disgusting paperwork.

“I have bigger problems than a 500 year old human. She can be put back on ice for all I care or thrown off the deepest mine cliff. The intel is of no use to me.”

“Even if is of no concern, you know more than the lawkeeper. Nolan will keep searching for answers.”

“As is his job.” Datak’s mouth cracked upward and he let out a short, cruel laugh. “Let him chase his own tail if it keeps him out of my way.”

“You are wise as always.”

Datak had left his busy work to meet his wife’s stare.

“That is why I was elected mayor of this town, is it not?”

Stahma grinned.

She understood what they had sacrificed to gain a foothold in the highest tier. Datak had fought from the vagabond depths of Castithan society through the ranks of both his kind and of Votan and human alike. He smuggled, dealt, and manipulated his way to the top. Through tricks and physical force Datak honored Shaje Liro. It was carried out in a new world with new rules, which made his efforts all the more impressive. If anyone knew the cost, risked it, and came out on the other side much improved it was the House of Tarr. Politics in Defiance were not won on merit alone.

“With the best of intentions.”

“And just what are _your_ intentions, Stahma?”

Her fingers drifted out to pet his jacket. The material was finely sewn and bought with the salary of a king. Stahma’s knuckles brushed against his hair, its silver so tarnished and stringy it could have passed for grease. She didn’t cringe. She never cringed.

“My place is by your side.” Her pursed lips grazed his cheek. “My intentions are what you wish them to be.” She pressed in once, twice, not flinching as her lips loved the abrasive skin. “Our partnership can resume stronger than before.” Stahma’s vow met the corner of Datak’s mouth. “We can accomplish whatever you desire.”

“That has always been my understanding.”

“The future is bright, my darling. I feel that it will impact us in ways we cannot imagine.”

“Just so long as it is a future that does not leave stab marks in my back. Because at the slightest suggestion I will rip that future piece by piece with my very teeth.”

There was mutual agreement in a meeting of lips. As usual Stahma slowed his ambitions down to more a manageable level, where they were not as palpable to the eye. But Datak’s teeth were sharp, rivaling those of his serpent wife. They knew passion without mercy, and could tear out the throat of any who deceive him. And without respite, Datak tore through the veil like the animal he was.

Stahma loved that cruelty. Had once loved, maybe.

* * *

It was a song that drew Helena to Chez Renard. An old track sung by Vera Lynn if memory served. One of those optimistic songs played before your sweetheart went to war, _We’ll Meet Again_ was popular among young lovers. Some were reunited; others were lost to disease, imprisonment, or the might of men. The chorus surged from the open streetcar-turned-café like a call to those thousands of lost lovers.

A waitress of Castithan blood came over just as Helena sank into one of the booths. A china cup and saucer was placed before her.

“Tea or coffee?”

After a moment’s hesitation Helena through caution to the wind by choosing the former.

It was like being in the U.S. again – save for the aliens and cigarette clouds. The salt and pepper shakers were pinned to a lace table cloth, a small lamp battled the shadows in the sore lit café, and the tables were spaced in such a way that Old World Americans couldn’t frown upon.

The Castithan waitress arrived with her order. As long as she was making connections, Helena was sure the tea was ghastly, too.

The song was still playing. Helena took in the interior of the streetcar like the outsider she was. Stranger in a strange land, the irony had not been lost on her. The father of science fiction living in the future of said genre… it doesn’t get any more ironic.

But ‘strange’ could not be reserved for appearances. According to Doc Yewll she was as human as they came (a patronizing remark that Helena jumped on with a stream of disgruntled comebacks her former superior could be proud of). Despite what knowledge and history stirred beneath, the woman looked no different on the outside. Patrons both human and Votan alike passed her over with disinterest. The reaction miffed Helena somewhat. If only they knew her true identity. If only they knew how fortunate they were for the technological society a certain prophet of science fiction had inspired.

Helena bit her lip just as the thought occurred. It was a notion she could not entertain. The lawkeeper had given her strict instructions to lay low until he could figure out a story to sell the town (or her story if Helena would ever talk about it). Taking orders was not a prerogative of the once Victorian and twice removed Warehouse agent, though this Nolan character didn’t seem to be the authoritative type. He reminded her of the agents in her time, Warehouse 13 time. Helena was also too exhausted to rebel. She was already trying to conceal her story, a past that would never reach her lips or ears again. Doc Yewll let her off as her vital signs were normal and her disposition quite unwelcome. Helena wouldn’t fight it. She was glad to be free of reeking ammonia and condescension.

Once released Helena hit pavement. Being immobile for 33 years, there couldn’t be a more appropriate plan of action. She walked and walked and walked until her feet went sore. It was good to feel physical pain again. It was the only kind that could be soothed.

Vera Lynn’s voice, so assured of utopia, died out just as a Castithan lady entered the café. Yet another had received the call.

“What brings you here?”

Stahma smiled from across the booth. “I came to see my daughter-in-law, though it appears she is not working today.”

“Yet here you sit.”

“You are an observant human.”

Helena laughed. “I could not write an alien with a sense of humor as yours.”

“Is that some sort of… compliment? An adage from your time period?”

“Oh, never mind.”

Back straightened, Stahma couldn’t be sure whether she had been the offended or the offender. “Most people here are quick to take offense. And even quicker to draw their weapon.”

“The observation is not lost on me. On my way here I witnessed three muggings, two domestic disturbances, and what appeared to be arms trafficking in broad daylight.”

The Castithan waitress served Stahma’s usual. “Welcome to Defiance.” She couldn’t help overhearing.

“Yes, quite the committee.”

After decades of dry conversation and accumulating witticisms, Helena could have snarked the attendant into extinction if given the chance. She turned back to Stahma half drained of enthusiasm.

“Well if it makes you feel better I would draw my Tesla on you, but it so happens I did not have one on my person when bronzed.”

“Tesla? Is that a kind of cold-fire weapon?”

“To be perfectly accurate, Tesla is a person – with about a tenth of my share of modesty. But again, never mind.”

“Why should I not mind?”

Helena squinted. She leaned in, hands clasped before her on the table. “I do not claim to understand your species but you seem a bit curious for a – what did the lawkeeper call it? – oh yes, a Castican.”

Stahma’s jaw twitched. “ _Castithan_.”

“Of course.”

“We all have our stories.”

Helena inclined her head and smiled as if to her own cosmic joke. “That we do.”

“You never spoke of a true home, before your captivity.”

“Look who’s prying now.”

Stahma’s forehead crinkled. It was never easy to pull one over. The Castithan had come across a few (just a few), but had learned from these meddlers, gaining ground over the reckless bunch. The last person to see through her also happened to be a victim of that progress. Just how this human was able to assert such threatening superiority became a puzzle. Or maybe it was just Stahma losing her touch. Again.

Helena sloshed milk in her tea to make it more appealing. The cloud expanded into the murky amber and fell at a stagnant depth, raising a suspicious brow from its drinker.

“The only home I’ve ever known,” Helena said in a vacant stare into her tea, “withered and died before I could ever see it through to better times.”

Stahma’s hopes at uncovering a plan or even a profit to her own stratagems fell as insoluble milk in water. This human was much more devastated then made out to be. The story was far deeper than expected.

“Here or there, ill or not, she was the one place where I felt like I belonged.”

“She?”

“Myka,” Helena said, meeting Stahma with windows now occupied by a constant vision. “She had superior intelligence. She was one of a kind and a great asset to the Warehouse. But for as smart as she was she was frightfully poor at taking care of herself. It took her partner of four years to convince her that treatment should resume. Even after weeks of carrying this burden she still saw fit to keep it from her closest friends.”

“She had taken ill?”

Helena nodded to the question and the memory. “Before I had even been informed. It still surprises me that for all my determination in finding fault in others… the first thing I did when I came to her was catch her hand in mine. Without a word on either of our parts, I did not let go. Accusations were dodged. My main concern was her health so I focused on a cure.” Helena’s chuckle was stunted and breathy. “Did I mention oncology was not my area of expertise?”

Stahma gave a very human shrug.

“No? Oh, well. So I took care of Myka in a way I never had, the way I should have. I stayed with her. Myka didn’t say it at first but I knew it was gratitude spilling over those nights I was thought to be asleep. Maybe it was what saw her through it all.

“Her health improved dramatically and for a time we thought luck was on our side. Myka and I had a year together.” Helena dipped her chin. Her cheeks flushed. “One year of Twizzlers and who was coveting who’s new and improved grappler. Those days passed so quickly it was as if the sun never set. The mornings were always luminous when Myka was around. Her crooked smile imploring me to take the day off, the crinkling pages of her favorite novel, her blush when I demanded to know which author wrote it.

“But it was different. She was different. Work ceased to concern her, perhaps because she grasped at a new chance and refused to waste it on paperwork and artifacts. We knew the risks if she returned to the Warehouse, and I thank God every day for 33 years that we never had to keep her from it. She was far more enthralled with my return. Her constant attentions to me were, I will admit, invigorating. I had craved them for so long…”

She turned towards the window and a curtain of ebony shielded her face for a moment. Stahma saw the shoulders rise and fall like the ones sheathed in a kimono and wondered what a year would have felt like.

“The sun never set on her for she was too stubborn to let the dark take her. It took a great deal of persuasion on our friends’ part in getting her to sleep. She may have survived surgery, but her body needed rest. I watched over her every night. Fear was so present then. Fear that it would be the last time those eyes closed, the last time her breath warmed my face. Myka caught me one night. She… she didn’t say a word. She just looked at me with those lids all droopy from sleep. I was mesmerized and didn’t know my hand was being moved until I felt the beating under my fingertips. Myka had covered her heart with my hand. And I slept knowing she was still thriving.”

The _clink-clank-clink_ of a silver spoon occupied the stillness. The loose bits of leaves swirled in the golden liquid.

“This tea is horrid,” Helena said.

“How long did she have?”

There was no _plop-plop_ of tear drops into her aforementioned beverage. The bronze kept those at bay for decades so why break the cycle just because she was free of it?

“The doctor could not make a precise determination. ‘Enough time to make preparations,’ he said. It was not precise enough for my conscience. The dolt wouldn’t even afford her the odds, saying “the field of medicine wasn’t an exact science in this case.” Well of course it bloody well is! If you have equipment and professionals that can accurately quantitate an interpretation, test hypotheses, and reproduce experiments it _is_ an exact science!”

Agitated as a loose screw on a nuclear bomb, Helena combed her hand through her hair. The soft pads of her fingers running along her scalp barely eased the machinations beneath.

“Myka wouldn’t hear of my protests. It was a simple fact… she was ready and I was not. I think it hurt me more than it hurt her that she tried waiting, but her condition was becoming grave and she was tiring.”

Helena left the stark look on Stahma for her own hands. They peeled off the tea cup to lay face up as if carrying an invisible weight. “She was in my arms…” Helena didn’t break. She was still and heartened. The only thing that did not seem sure was her voice which lacked its usual dignity.

“A year... I forced myself to feel well-off that it was enough. We said what needed to be said before it was too late. There are no regrets but my not having gotten there sooner. I regret that I let her go in the first place. Yet if there is anything that gives me peace it is that she appropriated my most earnest feelings with her.

“So many times I have seen loved ones depart from this world. They took pieces of me with them. And with Myka’s passing it was too much. I experienced my fair share of loss and then some. She took all I had left because I had given it unselfishly and with the admission that the sturdiest piece of me belonged to her and only her. It was the part I had never dared give up. It was the piece that allowed me to write and to think and to dream. It allowed my imagination to break boundaries. It was the resilient muscle that had been cracked and repaired times over until it finally opened completely. It was the most precious measure of my existence and I gave it to her willingly.

“I watched the days rise and fall with little radiance than before. Everything looked gray, dry, and tired. Or maybe that was just the way I felt. Later, but not much later… my cowardice knew no bounds and all sense left me. It wasn’t until I was behind bronze that I realized I had broken a promise.” Helena pursed her lips and cradled the tea cup tighter. Her voice dropped to the depths of a grave. “If you ever wanted to know what it is like to stew in bronze and watch civilization crumble you will have to leave here mystified. It is a fate worse than the most painful death, and that is all I have to say on the matter.”

“You blame yourself for her infirmity?”

“I blame myself for giving up so easily. She fought hard for my freedom from the beginning. She wanted my fate to be anything but a prison – coin, holographic sphere, or bronze. Misery blinded me from carrying out her wishes. Myka only asked one thing of me and I could not even do that.”

“Castithans have a practice called cleansing,” Stahma said. “Desertion and cowardice are violations of Casti law. Our god, Rayetso, says running from battle reflects upon the brothers of our liro. The offender is denied passage through the afterlife if a cleansing ceremony is not performed.”

“Are you saying I should be held accountable for not standing by her?” Helena grew red from the neck to the tips of her ears. Her snarl could have stirred the hairs on the adjacent seated Liberata. “I have endured torture! I engaged in that kind of ceremony for decades knowing it was my hand that threw the switch each time. _I_ led myself down this road and only _I_ will suffer from it. So do not presume to save me with your…” she squinted and waved a hand “religion! You can keep your cleansing ceremonies to yourself, thank you very much. Piss off!”

Helena made a move to leave, but a stark white hand grabbed hers. She froze, halfway raised from the booth.

It took a few seconds before Stahma realized what she had done. When it occurred to her that Helena stilled because of her intervention she drew back the hand. It returned to her lap just as her mouth parted in gasp. She blinked and looked down searching.

Helena sat down finally. Her back settled softly into the cushion of the booth.

Though it was the first time anyone but a doctor had made physical contact with her, Helena had a feeling she didn’t hold sole ownership over shock and awe. She wondered just what had gotten into this ultra-reserved friend of hers. It never occurred to Helena that this woman was an alien. While her alabaster skin and near inhuman grace were not of this world, there was an old fashioned kind of familiar behind those eyes. It came off as human as in the way she reached out to Helena.

“I was referring to myself.” Stahma’s smile presented apologetic. “The intention in making a connection… partaking over our regrets was poorly thought out. I was foolish.”

“Well there is no reason to be so bloody excessive.”

That Helena referred to the apology and not the ‘connection’ seemed to please Stahma. She did smile at the crossed arms and put-upon expression. She felt it necessary.

“I was a coward in my own right. There was someone…”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” Stahma said. “She was fresh and extremely bold in nature. I was so overwhelmed by my own exhilaration that it terrified. I feared my death and that of this woman. I could not play the game as well as I thought. If I did she would still be here.”

“You have experienced loss, then?”

“In a sense.”

“What was she like?”

“She had a way of knowing what people needed,” Stahma said with a certainty that assumed the Earth revolve around the Sun. “She took great pride in her work, exhibiting compassion when scarce and patience when requested.” Her laugh was melodious above the bustling sounds of the diner. “She had once offended me and bedded me in the span of an afternoon. We danced.” Stahma’s gaze grew far because they had only danced once so that it had risen to mind was most strange.

“I was taken aback that someone, a human, expressed interest in me. Not only me but my poetry.”

Helena’s brow soared as did her curiosity. “You write?”

If Castithans could blush beneath their pale white features, Stahma would be as pink as an organically generated peach.

“Since arriving on Earth I had not picked up my journal until Kenya’s encouragement. She spoke of things my father would not approve of, much less my people’s tradition. She spoke of independence, of wanting things. Once Kenya heard my verses she expressed the importance in doing something that was just for myself. I have never encountered such spirit in a person, human or Votan.”

“She sounds rather special. I can imagine how difficult it must be. You miss her.”

Stahma inclined her head. If finished it could have passed for a nod.

“I was grateful for her.” Stahma’s lips broke into a smile not even Rayetso could hold back. “She was my secret. I shared things with her, private thoughts and feelings. I experienced things with her. It was all so new. Poetry cannot describe those nights.”

“Passion is not so easily translated into words. Rather action.”

Stahma shared the smirk, and maybe for the first time ever it was a kind of wicked that did not poison.

“Before I would never have opened up to anyone outside my caste or my family.”

It was like Helena was looking in a mirror. And not just physical features; instincts cultivated in service to the Warehouse allowed her to make peace with that anomaly. It was the storm raging underneath that Helena was emulating with. Stahma’s imprisonment resembled Helena’s own. Her misfortune, loss, and regret were as intimate to Helena as the inside of a bronze cast.

“I will always grieve for Myka. I shoulder this sorrow because without it she becomes a faceless past. I can remember every contour of her face, the way she smells or how her laugh bellows… I can remember all of it if I ache for her.” Helena’s head tipped to the side. She frowned, assuming the visage of one opening up to reason. “I do not know why I was so quick to divulge such things to a stranger. I had not even told Myka some of what I have revealed to you. But it all came out so naturally. And I suppose telling you all this helps me in some small way. It means there is one more person out there in this universe that knows about that year. In a world devoid of her friends and family, there is one more that knows of Myka Bering. In effect, a weight of remembrance is lifted while her memory still endures.” She shrugged as if it was lighter already and blinked back the thickness in her eyes. “And that just might help me go on.”

Stahma gathered the human’s exposition in a slow paced nod. “If we both know then it will seem as if they are alive.”

“I know she is not.”

“And I know Kenya is not. Yet she can live on through memory. As long as one of us still breathes she will too, as will Myka.”

“This is a most absurd closure.”

“Not closure. Understanding. You have a second chance now to live a life she hoped for you.”

“Second chance? Goodness, I have stopped counting the number of chances I have been offered.”

Stahma leaned in, placing her hands flat on the table. “This is a new world. This town prides itself on shirking our pasts for a second chance. No matter how far removed you seem from redemption there is a place here for you.”

“What makes you believe that?”

Stahma detected a striking gravity in the woman’s tone. Helena’s brow furrowed as if it kept her pleading self at bay. It was sheer determination that prevented her kneecaps from meeting the floor.

“Because if I did not, there would be no hope for the rest of us.”

It seemed right to leave things at that. Only two other people had seen Stahma and Helena as they had just presented and now they were gone. It was a relief to both that they could speak of such things without consequence. It seemed fitting that after an inconceivable coincidence they should part ways.

Stahma’s hand dropped to cover her belly. She dragged along its slight slope like her touch could weave a barrier. Her smile was for the life it fortified. This time Stahma would do better. There was a new alliance to form and protect. She intended to grant the freedom this one deserved, the kind of freedom someone once wanted for her. Stahma would teach this little one the game and how to master the art of deception. She or he would grow into compassion and strength and one day surpass their father. Perhaps they would surpass their mother as well. Stahma hoped so. She counted on it.

Helena did not speak when the Castithan left. Stahma drifted off and out of Chez Renard in an exit ever so elegant as her initial entrance. Her chin was held high.

The server stopped to refresh her cup, but Helena waved her off. Tea in the States had not changed much after 33 years and an extraterrestrial invasion. Her finger looped around the handle to twist the cup in its saucer. It gave off a screeching that could have made ears bleed. Helena blew out a sigh and looked at the place across the table. Her eyes searched the vacancy like it had lost its companion.

She felt lighter. Confessions spilled from her lips before she realized what was happening. Perhaps it was just putting thoughts into words that arranged Helena’s mind to order. It was different when the same wounds inflicted the listener. But there was still a pressure on her chest, tightening around her ribs like no bronze could.

Helena’s eyes focused through the unoccupied space. Two tables away there was a figure, a human with a current of long ringlets. Light seeped through the window hitting the ink black landscape. Its rays absorbed into curls and brightened them in shades of red and gold. Its original color. Her vision blurred as these shades began to resemble something. Those curled ends had teased between her fingers. They could whisper against her cheek, her shoulders, her chest, and draw out a smile. Threads of it unraveled if stroked too much. It was her favorite feature, yet when it had all but vanished she still looked radiant.

An ache ran through Helena’s hand and she remembered to breathe. The edge of the table groaned under the force of her grip. The human female stood. Helena did the same.

She was tall. She stepped away from her table and hesitated. Her hand reached for the cup, sneaking one last taste. Their eyes didn’t meet, but Helena was sure as the settings on her time machine that those eyes were green.

It was possible to chase a ghost. This was in her nature. Adelaide… so precious and young and innocent. Her childlike curiosity, her bravery, the resemblance. A little girl who latched to her new mother. Helena needed the lie like she needed a home, like she needed air to breathe.

One booted foot in front of the other, Helena followed in footsteps through the street. Vendors sold their wares, children weaved and played in giggles, but she never took her eyes from the vision. A tall woman with dark curled hair.

One of the youngsters, a boy with a smudged nose and patched trousers, pushed passed Helena and sprinted ahead. Shouts from a peddler did not stop the thieving boy, but one man’s grip did. He was heavy set, clothed in an assortment of leather and knives, and possessed a disposition near to that of a rhinoceros. His meaty fist had the boy by the scruff of his collar, lifting the boy off his feet.

“Hey!”

The tall woman was there before the peach fell from the boy’s hand.

“Put him down. He’s just a kid.”

His grip twitched. He looked the woman over and Helena knew that premeditation stirred beneath that thick skull. Then again, the tightened feminine jaw and narrowed eyes proved they could hold their own. Despite her build, the woman’s determination alone could have taken a wild animal down.

The tightness in Helena’s chest magnified. For as dire her need to intervene her heels stuck to the mud street, immobile once again.

“I’ll pay for it so you can go back to stiffing the pale off a Casti at Ivali. Put him down.”

The rumbling sneer drew a crowd. Seeing an opportunity, the boy threw the toe of his sneaker into the man’s groin. His victim doubled over with a moan. Once released, the smudged nose child scrambled away, his prized peach forgotten in the mud.

It was the brute’s voice that finally unhinged Helena’s feet from the ground.

“Get back here ingrate or I’ll skin the dirt from that face!”

The rough tenor sent vibrations through the crowd. Some whispered in fright and clutched their children, while others shrugged and went on with their day.

The tall woman raced after the man with the crazy idea that she could make a difference. Her bellowing shouts alone carved a path through the crowd. Helena trailed in last with the dread that this would end at the point of a gun (and yet oh so wanting it to happen in other circumstances).

The chase sent a thrill coursing in her blood. There was only one other place where she could experience this kind of adrenaline. Helena flew, her arms and legs a blur, her chest burning so good. She would have smiled if it were not for the explosion.

Dirt flew in her path followed by smoke and fire. Her face, hands, and the tops of her thighs burned to a numbing intensity. Bells were screaming. Or were those voices?

“Terrorists!”

“E-Rep!”

“Traitors to Defiance!”

She coughed and stood. Her body wobbled, feet dragging through mounds of dirty, metal, bodies. Her hands, soot stained and bleeding, pushed the debris of hair from her vision. The face was looking up at her from its burial place. Blood draining from a nose, hair so black it melted into the scorched earth. Her eyes stared up into the heavens.

They drowned out the town’s cries for vengeance. The screams, they were clearer. They were not screams for ears. It was a series resonating in her soul. They were constant companions frozen with her over the years.

The future closed in on Helena like rubble. Her lungs still burned on ash. Her face wouldn’t stop seeping. It hurt everywhere.

Helena ran.

* * *

“There is a path for us all.”

Those were the only words the Irathient girl had to say. Rather, the only words of importance. Just after Helena's release from the medical center, Irisa pulled her aside for a lecture on extraterrestrial occultism. Reasons unknown.

Helena had never sought a higher power in all her adult life, so she took this… Irzu god and his indoctrination with a grain of salt. But the verse strung itself to her memory and wrapped round her like fingering vines. Tragedy had followed her. Everywhere she turned it was there: around a corner, a silhouette in the sunlight, drinking coffee in a café, or just buried.

Helena recognized her path too well. It was a problem within itself, knowing how damned she was.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Helena nearly toppled over trying to get through the door. She hovered over one of the desks, her hands supporting the brunt of her weight.

Nolan turned away from his assistant deputy to address the disturbance again. “You okay?”

Helena could only shake her head, gasping.

Irisa came into view. She crossed her arms and wore an expression of ‘Back so soon?’

“Bronze me.”

“Pardon?” Nolan said. He glanced at his daughter like she held the answer.

“Bronze me, put me in cryogenic storage…” Helena reeled as her hands floundered for a solution or an understanding of this world’s technology. “I built a time machine in 1900 for bloody sake! There has to be something in this future that does the trick. You have to put me back in stasis.”

“What’s the rush, sweetheart?”

“I’m dangerous.”

Nolan blinked. Tommy felt for the strap of his shotgun.

Irisa was the one to step forward. “How?”

“I am a threat to your town. I have done things you cannot even imagine.”

Nolan’s brow rose. His voice was even and slow. “You want us to think you’re some depraved individual capable of what? Blowing up the world?”

“Sorry,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “A whole alien invasion beat you to it.”

“Yes, well you’re still here aren’t you? And so is half the planet! So what do I have to be bloody grateful for? Being alive?”

“It’s a start,” Irisa said.

“I’d rather be bronzed than alive.”

Tommy shifted on his feet. “Being dead never crossed your mind?”

He muttered a “sorry” at the Irathien’s glare.

“Look” the lawkeeper rested his hands on his belt, “if you’re being threatened we can protect you. You can feel safe without having to lock yourself up from society. There’s no need to resort to extreme measures.”

Yet Helena was far beyond the extreme. The stolen gun in her hand proved quite the same.

“Woah, hey now!” Nolan drew his gun just as Tommy unshouldered his shotgun. “What did I just say about resorting to –“

“Put me away!” The gun trembled like it was an extension of its owner. “Put me away or shoot me, Mr. Nolan.”

“I’m not a fan of ultimatums.”

It wouldn’t faze Helena to kill those people. She’d die before she could get to them all, but at least her rage could be expressed somehow. Screaming! Cursing! Or through the end of a gentle, smoking gun.

“Choose.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“I’ve been awake for too long. I just want to sleep.” Helena’s lip trembled. “Please!”

Her scream resonated in every one of them. A shotgun waver, a recoiling knife, the finger on a rusted weapon easing.

Helena’s voice cut through the stillness.

“What if you could live forever?”

Nolan’s mouth opened and closed. He lowered his weapon an inch, paused, and then few more until the butt of the handle bumped to his thigh. “Is that what you want?”

“It is what I deserve. A miserable fate.”

“Why?”

“Because solitude has been my constant bedfellow. It is the only thing that has touched me and escaped destruction.” Her head shook from side to side as repetition spun round… round… round. “I only wish to fall asleep. Close my eyes… and leave this place. Sleep…”

Irissa threw a glance at Nolan who returned it. Something passed between them, an understanding the rest of those in the room did not catch. There’s a slight nod from one of them.

The gun in Helena’s grasp fell and clattered to the floor.

* * *

“We never did figure out why she looked like… you know.”

Nolan clapped the man on the shoulder. “Some mysteries, Tommy, should be left as they are.”

Tommy walked off just as Nolan noticed the still figure before the cryotube. His hand scratched the stubble on his chin.

“It was her choice,” he said, arriving at her side. “She wouldn’t listen to reason much less the two of us.”

“Yeah, who would solicit two loser male humans for advice?”

A deep laugh came from his belly. “Tommy’s not so hopeless.” Nolan shrugged. He continued to study the corners of the capsule. “I’m not bad, either.”

The hope had slowly drained from that sentiment over the years. It wasted away each time a gun was drawn and a body fell. Nolan’s failures were as familiar to his daughter as they were to him. It made them family.

“She wasn’t dangerous,” Irisa said.

“Probably not.”

“She just didn’t have anything to live for. Or anyone.”

“There’s a lot of those people out there. These are tough times.”

“She can’t hear us… can she?”

“No. Unlike that previous home of hers this one here has her in a state of unconsciousness. Doc made sure of it.”

Irisa nodded, somewhat satisfied.

The pale face the sleeper wore was as pretty as ever behind her new home’s frosted glass. It was just a square window, a frame around her features. Nolan stared, feeling that old familiar pulling sensation. She looked so much like her. It was not the kind of resemblance, say, one shared with a particular mayor’s wife. This kind of similarity was just a feeling. The defiance, the silk black hair, a kind of beauty only exaggerated in memory. Nolan’s hand clenched and unclenched. A small part of himself, a little boy who had once shielded his eyes from the sun of a new day, fought to make a move. His hand twitched towards the lock, wanting to wrench the door open.

He would have fought this woman on it. He would have prevented her from making the biggest mistake of her life. But the look in her eyes told him this was not it. Whatever done could not be undone. Restitution came in self-exile. Whatever the case for this chosen fate, he would remember this face.

“Do you think she’ll live forever?” Irisa said.

“Can’t say. Time will tell.”

The Irathient gave one final look before turning her back. She felt Nolan prop his arm around her shoulders as they walked from the deepest cavern of the McCawley Mines.

“Hey, kid. Did I ever tell you about your grandmother?”

The echoes of their presence soon diminished. The sound of desolation was all that remained. In the old world of St. Louis, buildings had already met their demise; roads cracked, weeds spread, withered, and died, and stagnant water seeped to new depths. It was a land unfit for natural life.

In a space between all this was the cryotube. Like some sore thumb it was so out of place in both the old and the new world. Shining smooth metal stood out amid its bleak environment. Darkness closed around it, yet the soft, glowing illuminations inside endured. Its inhabitant, once restless, hung immobile and unaware.

There she sleeps. There her dreams are forever.

* * *

_“Don’t cry or I won’t be able to stop.”_

_Helena choked. She squeezed the hand in hers tighter and then remembered. Like the rest, the little thing was all skin and bones. Her hand eased._

_“I’m glad we decided to do this here.” Her green eyes moved around the room even though they moved like rust in her sockets. They were heavy, like everything else. “Home.”_

_With a smile, Helena agreed._

_“Say something.”_

_The blanket over Myka’s hip scratched. In her grasp, it felt inevitable. Helena tucked the edge into Myka’s side, because she said it felt nice. Whatever helped._

_“Helena. Please?”_

_“What can I say?”_

_“Words are fine by me.”_

_“I’ve been working on that. It’s quite problematic.”_

_Myka’s sigh came out from her grin. She watched the sniff and subsequent wipe of a nose. “I believe in H.G. Wells.”_

_“Darling…” it would be the last and she gasped again, “I’m ‘Helena’ here, remember?”_

_“I know.” Myka took in the memories their room carried. It wasn’t the warehouse and it wasn’t one of the communal areas of the bed and breakfast. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to cheer you up.”_

_“No.”_

_“We’ve said goodbye so many times,” Myka said. Her throat was rasping such that it cut into Helena’s eardrums. “You’d think we’d be pros by now.”_

_“Myka, I_ can’t _.”_

_“You’re so beautiful.”_

_It was the morphine, Helena was sure of it. No one looked beautiful in her position._

_Myka took Helena’s hand and brought it to her cheek. There, it was the only place that hadn’t lost sensation. She felt herself fading from the bed where love had been made, her only anchor being Helena’s hand._

_“Please stay?” Helena said, fingertips stroking. “I will lose myself if you don’t.”_

_“You can’t lose that. It is a physical impossibility.”_

_“Damn it, Myka! That is not what I was referring to!”_

_Myka’s laugh was soft. “Hold on to that.”_

_“What?”_

_“Tenacity.”_

_Helena’s shoulders sagged. She gave it all up with a drawn expression that ran down Myka’s prone form. “I always let you win our arguments.”_

_“Even this one.”_

_“Especially this one.”_

_With a hum that vibrated through both of their beings, Myka closed her eyes and fell into the hand on her face._

_“Dream of me, Helena.”_

_When Helena looked back she caught the last words like an echo through the ages._

_“You can find me there.”_


End file.
